All gone.
The only sound I could hear was a strange and gut-wrenching keening: a strangled sob, a whimper, a scream.
It took me a few minutes to realize it was me.
Shay just stood there, smiling, like for the first time in a long time, all was right in the world. Like my pain was his bliss.
Chase. Chase. Chase.
I thought his name, over and over again, but I didn’t feel it, didn’t feel him. The bond we’d shared, the connection, his thoughts, his feelings—
There was nothing left. Nothing of him, and nothing
of me.
I should have done more. I should have fought for him.
I should have died for him. I would have. I wanted to.
There were never any answers. If I’d been faster, stronger—if I’d been smarter, if I’d been more, he would still be here: warm against my side, calm in my mind, loving me the way I loved him. Loving me better.
But he was gone.
My ears roared. I pulled away from Lake’s grasp. She let me go, and I struggled to stand straight.
It didn’t matter that the rest of the pack was there, in my head. I was alone, would always be alone now. I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around my midsection, like I was the one who had been gutted, like everything inside of me was in danger of spilling out.
If death was numbness, I’d died when Chase had—but by some cruel twist of fate, I was still here. I was here, and he was gone, and that wasn’t the kind of thing I could fix.
“Now we’re even,” Shay said.
I was empty inside. Hollowed out. Dead. But something about Shay’s words cut through the shock and the horror and the pain and brought another emotion to the surface.
Rage.
It sparked. Caught fire. Spread through my body, through my blood. There was no red haze, no instinct, no Resilience. There was only me and a certainty that Shay had started something that I would end.
If he wanted to play, I would play—and the name on his lips when he took his last breath?
It was going to be mine.
“We’ll be going now,” Shay said. “My wolves and I.”
I knew he didn’t just mean the legion surrounding us in the woods. He also meant the baby, the pup, the little girl, who he would never see as a person so much as a prize.
She was awake now—so fragile, so small. Maddy cradled her body against her chest. Through the bond, I could feel a need rise up inside of Maddy, one that put my own desire to protect those I loved to shame.
Maddy wouldn’t just die for her daughter. She’d deliver herself to hell to save her even a single second of pain. She’d do horrible things, and wonderful things, and everything in between—and she wouldn’t hesitate, not even for a second.
“I take it you’ll be coming, too?” Shay asked Maddy, pretending politeness, as if the girl who’d just given birth wasn’t covered in dirt, bloody, heartbroken, and nearly feral.
“You’ll understand, of course, if I require you to switch packs before traveling with us.” Shay leaned forward and blew out a light wisp of air into the baby’s nose before turning his attention back to Maddy. “Since Bryn would likely take my head on a platter, I can’t risk having a Cedar Ridge wolf running amok among our ranks.”
He thought he’d played this—played us—so perfectly. He thought he’d won, but it was obvious then that Shay Macalister had no idea what I was capable of, or how long I was willing to wait.
I was human now, but I wouldn’t always be. The odds were on his side, but someday, somehow, that would change.
Bryn. Maddy’s voice was quiet in my mind. I didn’t make her ask me for anything. I didn’t react to the unspoken request or Shay’s machinations in any visible way.
All I did was let Maddy go.
I pulled my mind from hers, unable to do anything else.
There were rules—rules about who we could kill and how and why. Rules about a human life not measuring up to the life of a werewolf. Rules about retribution and inter-pack relations, Senate meetings and territory.
The rules said the baby was a member of the Snake Bend Pack.
The rules said her alpha mattered more than her mother.
We all knew that Shay wasn’t bluffing. He would take the baby, knowing that if Maddy didn’t follow, the pup would likely die. Given King Solomon’s dilemma, Shay would have cut that precious bundle in two, because that was the kind of monster he was.
Face streaked with tears and dirt, Maddy stepped forward and offered her mind up to Shay, allowing him to Mark her, to violate her, to possess her in every conceivable way. I felt the change, saw it fall over Maddy’s body with the weight of chains. The pup in her arms stirred, pressing clumsy feet against her mother’s stomach.
Foreign. Wolf.
Maddy wasn’t Pack—not to us, not anymore. The rules said she was Shay’s now. The rules said that no one else could claim her unless he willingly let her go—and he would never, ever let her go.
That was reality. That was the truth. Maddy was gone. Chase was dead. The rules said the only way I could attack Shay with impunity was if he offered up his own life or attacked me first. Personally. Directly.
Rules had let him kill Chase.
Rules had let him send Lucas into my pack to kill me.
I hated the rules. I hated them, hated that I was a part of this world, that Callum had ever saved my life, that I had grown up thinking this was normal, and that the only slice of normal I’d ever had was gone—without warning, forever. I would never, even for a second, get to be just a girl again, and Chase would never get to be.
Because of the rules.
“You never stood a chance,” Shay told me, in a voice best reserved to lovers whispering in bed. “Look around, Bryn. Everything you see is mine—and what isn’t now”—his eyes lingered on Lake—“will be soon.”
I looked around. I saw his pack, his numbers. I felt their power, the way he’d meant for me to. I thought about what we had lost, and I thought about the rules.
That’s when I realized—what Shay had done. What I could do. The possibility took root in my mind and filled the emptiness inside me with one purpose.
One plan.
“Until next time,” Shay said, directing the words at me
before turning to Maddy. “Time to go, Madison. We’ll have plenty of time later to discuss your reluctance to give me my due.”
Shay was still putting on a show for me, letting me know that while he wouldn’t kill her, he would hurt her—because she’d chosen me, twice. Because the rules said he could.
One purpose. My heart beat with it. Each breath in and out of my lungs fueled it. One plan.
I hadn’t found a way to save Chase. I was too human. I’d stood there and let him die because he asked me to. Because I hadn’t seen another way. Because Shay had come here with a plan, and I hadn’t.
One purpose. One plan.
Shay turned to go, jerking Maddy alongside him. The rest of the Snake Bend Pack pulled in to follow. I felt the brush of fur against my ankles and legs as they passed. I heard the snapping of teeth, and I let myself think the words that had knocked over a long line of dominoes in my mind.
He brought his entire pack.
I waited until they were out of sight, all of them—Shay, Maddy, the Weres in wolf form and the ones who’d chosen to run as humans. They disappeared to the west,
through Shadow Bluff territory, and I absentmindedly added the Shadow Bluff alpha to my list.
The list of people responsible for the bodies on the ground.
The list of people I would never forgive, never forget.
Wordlessly, I knelt next to Chase’s body. In death, he’d Shifted back to human form. His face was frozen in an expressionless mask. His eyes were open, his body a bloody mess.
I brought my hand to his cheeks. I closed his eyes. I expected to feel something, to feel him, but I didn’t.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
Gone.
I straightened and stood. No crying, no tears, no asking God why. All that mattered was taking from Shay what he’d taken from me.
The thing that mattered most.
Lake opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Caroline was equally silent, her eyes bloodshot, dead. Maybe I should have blamed her for this, added her name to the list. She was the one who had fired the shots, she was the one who’d gotten under my skin enough that I’d put my pack on the line to protect her.